So this popped up in the Slack channel earlier today, who would be up for a weekly group that pretty much plays tourist in old MMOs?

Specifically games like Everquest or Ultima Online where we can host a private server with an xp modifier, and drop over powered gear in and we can go full murder hobo while wandering around admiring the world. There are a dozen games we could run through, but if there is no interest I wont look into hosting the servers.

You KNOW I am on board! I love old mmos and find their world building to be impeccable! I am currently playing project 1999 legitamitely which is vanilla everquest and would love to forego the pretenses of leveling just to explore the world.

And this can even go to the likes of asherons call, meridian 59 and other whack-adoo stuff! Let's do this!

Possibly, depending on how much of a hassle it'd be to get some of them running I guess.

That said, I'm not sure how solid of an impression might be gained that way. Might depend a bit on if anyone is familiar enough with a given game to act as a tour guide.

I suspect a similar goal could be attained in games that are still live if someone experienced in them would agree to run a Racketboy guild for a month. The main consideration is that most of the Together groups seem to not have particularly high participation on a regular basis. It might be different for MMOs or something, where having a group of friends to play with changes the experience dramatically.

isiolia wrote:Possibly, depending on how much of a hassle it'd be to get some of them running I guess.

That said, I'm not sure how solid of an impression might be gained that way. Might depend a bit on if anyone is familiar enough with a given game to act as a tour guide.

I suspect a similar goal could be attained in games that are still live if someone experienced in them would agree to run a Racketboy guild for a month. The main consideration is that most of the Together groups seem to not have particularly high participation on a regular basis. It might be different for MMOs or something, where having a group of friends to play with changes the experience dramatically.

One of the biggest reasons to experience an mmo this way versus through other larger scale servers is the biggest factor... time. My experience with Everquest through project 1999 has me logging in around 30-40 hours to get to level 12. Certain factors like congested hunting grounds and large wait times for dungeon spawns can contribute to diminished experience. Now I myself am not complaining because I love playing a game the way it was intended on being played, but I would also love to just have free reign to explore without worry of death and the inevitable 2 hour corpse run.

I would love to hear some more support for this. Everquest is genuinely one of the most expansive and well crafted worlds!

Well, while the combat system is archaic, I did used to play a lot of Asheron's Call. I could show folks at least a few places that I used to hang out, though my knowledge of the world is admittedly rusty and out of date. The nice thing about it though is that the world was largely open, so if we were leveled up, we could just take a jaunt through the wilderness.

BogusMeatFactory wrote:One of the biggest reasons to experience an mmo this way versus through other larger scale servers is the biggest factor... time. My experience with Everquest through project 1999 has me logging in around 30-40 hours to get to level 12. Certain factors like congested hunting grounds and large wait times for dungeon spawns can contribute to diminished experience. Now I myself am not complaining because I love playing a game the way it was intended on being played, but I would also love to just have free reign to explore without worry of death and the inevitable 2 hour corpse run.

I completely understand that. From what you said in the other thread though, it seemed like EQ has much faster ways to progress that you're opting not to utilize. As discussed there, I think a lot of still-active older games tend to do that in some way. So, practically speaking, a group could take advantage of that...and then go tour earlier areas with little threat. Doubly so if someone who knows that game could outline an effective route.

Like I said, I think private server stuff would depend on how much time and effort it'd take to set up. Obviously, for some games, it's the only option.

Personally, I know FFXI in particular. I haven't played actively in almost a year, but about all I'm not familiar with is the one new event they've put together since then (Omen).

if you guys want to play Elder Scrolls Online it would be timely as the Morrowind expansion is out on June 6th. If you guys don't want to play Elder Scrolls Online then I'm going to be too busy to participate in this thread... starting June 6th.